That is the question I repeatedly ask, and yet come up with no sensible answer, except it is yet another way that the consumer can be manipulated. What is it? Well the big league players in the DVD world decided that a great way to screw the consumer would be to make a DVD that would only play on certain DVD units. It breaks down like this:

What does this mean? Well in a nutshell, if you go to England and attend a concert that you really like, and buy the DVD of the event, there is a sporting chance that you not be able to play it in your DVD unit in Boston or New York.

The question I have is why do they do this? I have looked high and low for an answer, and I cannot find a sensible answer. It obviously costs the hardware manufacturers more money to have to implement the â€œError, Wrong Region Codeâ€ message, and the underlying infrastructure to stop out of region DVD’s playing. This certainly looks like a great case of the tail wagging the dog. It is the content providers that came up with this silly system, and the hardware folks have gone along with it like Sheep to the slaughter.

This is a pointless and worthless feature, that no one wants. Research reveals little about it’s origins, but you can bet your bottom dollar the MPAA are involved.
I am a firm believer in ‘what is mine, is mine, I should be able to tweak it, mess with it, and break it’, the DVD industry obviously does not share my ideas.

2 users commented in " Why Do DVD’s Have Region Codes, Because They Can? "

Good post. Absolutely true, it sucks trying to take DVDs on holiday only to find that if you wanted to watch them abroad, you should have brought your DVD player too – ridiculous. I believe the reason that officials would give is that it is to stop DVDs being bought en mass from a supplier and then selling them abroad for a greater price but forcing you to buy another copy I’m sure would have been on the agenda.

dominub said,

in June 11th, 2010 at 4:43 am

Blu-Rays dont have region codes, so this whole dvd nonesense is a nice, big cup from the urinal.

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